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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Danish Man Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Producing Child Pornography and Extorting a Minor

WASHINGTON – A Danish man was sentenced today in the Western District of Missouri to 30 years in prison for producing and transporting child pornography and for extortion against an 11-year-old Missouri girl, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips of the Western District of Missouri announced.

Kai Lundstroem Pedersen, 61, a citizen of Denmark, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Greg Kays. Pedersen pleaded guilty to the federal indictment on Sept. 6, 2011.

According to court documents, in July 2010, Pedersen engaged in a video web chat from his home in Denmark with an 11-year-old girl in Buchanan County, Mo., identified as Jane Doe #1. Pedersen used a fake Facebook account to pose as a juvenile-aged male. Pedersen admitted that he instructed the girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct that he recorded and saved as a digital video on his computer. This video, as well as screen capture images from the video, were later edited and distributed to others, including family and friends of the victim. Pedersen distributed the images and video over the Internet via file-sharing software.

Pedersen contacted Jane Doe #1 using various aliases through email and chat programs from July to September 2010 in an effort to convince her to engage again in sexually explicit conduct via video web chat. Pedersen threatened to disseminate sexually explicit images of her over the Internet if she did not comply with his demands. For example, on Aug. 15, 2010, Pedersen used nine different aliases on Facebook to contact Jane Doe #1, relaying rape and murder fantasies, asserting that various individuals had watched her video and describing the various sexual acts that these individuals wanted to perform on her.

According to court documents, in August 2010, Pedersen initiated contact with another minor female in rural Missouri, whom he believed to be a close friend of Jane Doe #1. Pedersen contacted this victim, identified as Jane Doe #2, in an effort to exert pressure to have either Jane Doe #1 or Jane Doe #2 perform sexually explicit conduct for him via video web chat.

On Aug. 13, 2010, Jane Doe #1=s mother contacted law enforcement authorities. The mother told an officer that she learned of the contact with Pedersen after receiving Facebook messages that contained nude images of her daughter. A law enforcement officer, posing as a minor victim, communicated online with Pedersen and learned that he was traveling for vacation on Aug. 20, 2010. When Pedersen logged into his Facebook account on Aug. 25, 2010, investigators were able to trace his Internet protocol address to a residence in Stonybrook, N.Y., where he was arrested on Sept. 3, 2010.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick D. Daly of the Western District of Missouri and Trial Attorney Keith Becker of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. It was investigated by the Buchanan County, Mo., Sheriff=s Department; the Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force; the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); and CEOS.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys= Offices and the Criminal Division=s CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.